I'm something of an amateur film and television buff. Growing up, I received a great deal of exposure to shows and movies of all sorts, thanks to my dad—just like video games are my favorite way to unwind, practically any kind of TV and cinema are his. I'd often sit down to watch something with him, or else do homework or play Game Boy or read a book in the same room, so that we could still spend time together while he was catching up on the latest episode of Don't Really Care 'Cuz There Are Lawyers In It. Visits with my grandparents broadened my horizons even further—I picked up a bit of a taste for boxing, professional wrestling, Britcoms, cooking shows, and even a low tolerance for farming shows and home shopping networks.By the time I left for college, I'd seen—in whole or in part—films and shows from a broader spectrum of genres and time periods than the average kid my age. Aside from a few things my dad refused to put up with—I have yet to see A Christmas Story or anything from start to finish starring Woody Allen—I'd potentially watch anything as long as I could stomach it (I'm quite squeamish and don't do well with horror flicks, much to my dad's—and my wife's—chagrin). I arrived on campus with a willingness to at least try watching whatever anybody put in front of me, because I'd learned that even the oldest, campiest, weirdest, and most awful-looking shows and movies can sometimes be surprisingly enjoyable...and that you can always flip to something else if not.One of the first extracurricular activities I got involved with at college was the anime society. Saturday afternoons until dinnertime we'd sit down to watch five back-to-back episodes of an anime series; same deal on Sundays, but with a different series. Now, I had seen a few episodes of Sailor Moon and Speed Racer here and there, but Japanese cartoons weren't part of the regular lineup in the Hoover household when I was younger. I believe it was my roommate who suggested I attend the first meeting, and any excuse to hang out with people at college was a good one. We started with Blue Seed, a charmingly formulaic monster-of-the-week show with occasional humor and plenty of action. We also had at least a dozen other people with us—a few of whom provided fantastic MST3K-worthy commentary the whole time—as well as having an auditorium and its huge projector screen all to ourselves. I was hooked.By sophomore year, I was marathoning all of Neon Genesis Evangelion in my dorm room in a day and a half. Reading subtitles had become second nature to me, and I'd grown to appreciate the preservation of the original voices and inflection that subtitles provide. Anime was a gateway to foreign films, another category that wasn't a staple growing up. Between my Spanish classes, my semester abroad in Spain, and a handful of on-campus screenings that I otherwise wouldn't have attended without that initial exposure to anime (and that willingness to try watching anything), foreign films from any country became a minor interest.When I discovered a wall of Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplain movies in the school library, I added silent films to my list as well. If I could read subtitles, I could read cue cards, and having no spoken language wasn't that far off from having a spoken language whose meaning I couldn't comprehend. Besides, I was used to the decades-old war movies and Christmas movies and Twilight Zone episodes that I and various members of my extended family enjoyed; black-and-white was nothing new to me. It's amazing what you miss by limiting yourself to a single era or genre of film; since watching Battleship Potemkin, and more recently, Metropolis, any preconceived notions I ever had about the standards and limitations of vintage cinema have been thrown out the window.I believe it was my junior year of college when I began my great movie project. Whenever I was home on break, I'd make trips to the local library to stock up on movies for the week, going through the DVD shelves in alphabetical order. I didn't pick up every movie available; just the ones that (a) were landmark films that everyone assumes you've seen, such as The Godfather; (b) were being talked about with any sort of frequency at school, such as Fight Club; and (c) I felt like watching for the heck of it, such as *batteries not included. By the time my project formally came to a close, I was up to Hotel Rwanda.In the years that followed my graduation, my friends, wife, and in-laws were largely responsible for the continuing expansion of my cinematic experience. I got roped into trying the 3-D fad with the likes of Beowulf, Avatar, and A Christmas Carol. My buddy Alex and I sat down to watch fivefilmsbyAkiraKurosawa for an Exfanding project one year. Out of self-preservation, I began watching Doctor Who so that I could keep up with the inevitable conversation topic anytime I was with my wife's family. I was at the US premiere screening of the Japanese film Ramen Samurai thanks to my wife, who has also introduced me to more classic children's movies than anyone else who's not a blood relative. (What do you mean you've never seen Thumbalina!? We're fixing that right now!)Netflix, of course, has been the biggest contributor of the last few years. Given my wife's eclectic tastes, and my eclectic tastes, we've successfully confused the adaptive suggestions of this delightful on-demand movie streaming service. We choose to share a profile that tracks both of our viewing habits so that we can get movie recommendations from categories such as, "Quirky, Action-Packed, and Cerebral Korean Buddy Cop Documentaries from the 1930s Featuring a Strong, Scantily Clad Mad Scientist Female Lead and Visually Striking Animated Bollywood Musical Sequences for Children, Filmed in Outer Space, with Vampires." Needless to say, our movie queue is quite colorful.It's been a long time since I've watched movies and TV shows purely for entertainment. There's the joy of discovering new things I never realized I'd like. There's the cultural experience of learning about a different country, or time period, or way of life through film. There's the academic pursuit of becoming informed about this My Little Pony thing that people keep asking about. Call me a cinematic sponge, absorbing whatever I can. If it happens to be fun, so much the better. After years of pushing the boundaries of what I watch, I've learned it's the viewing experience—the quality time I spend watching with other people, and the knowledge and in-jokes and discussions that we take away from it—that makes it potentially worthwhile to watch practically anything.

Writing is often cathartic for me, and such was the case with my last post: I felt better almost immediately after finishing it. Reflecting on my own happiness got me to thinking about what, truly, has been responsible for keeping my default mood so subdued.The answer? Me.The things that had been dragging me down—fear, guilt, regret, anxiety, sorrow—were so persistent because my primary response had been to wait for them to change. All my problems would go away if I held on long enough. External forces would eventually assert themselves and alter my situation for the better. This, coming from the control freak. No wonder I was so frequently unhappy.In the last few days, I've adopted the "Do Something About It" policy: if it bothers me, do something about it. I have the power to wash dishes when I'm tired of looking at the pile next to the sink. I am capable of spending less money so I don't feel so paranoid about my cash flow. I am not required to work on my creative side projects when I honestly don't have the time or drive to do them right. If all it takes is a minor inconvenience in the short term to stifle an issue that'll bug me in the long term, then I'll feel better doing something about it instead of gritting my teeth for days or weeks or months on end.The "Do Something About It" policy extends beyond the realm of physically doing something, too. Many of the things that annoy and depress me are beyond my ability to change, yet it's up to me whether I allow my negative feelings about them to take me hostage. Does the motorist who fails to use his turn signal really deserve more than a few seconds of righteous frustration from me? Am I a better person for only ever getting sad when I think of my deceased relatives, as though their absence is the only thing worth remembering about them? I lose more than I gain when I dwell on my aggravations and sorrows. Acknowledging them is one thing, but there's a certain point when it's no longer productive—if not outright counter-productive—to focus on the negative.That's where I find myself now: identifying when it's no longer productive to focus on the negative. Whether by thought or action, I'm making my life a happier one. It's the best I've felt in a long time.

When I think about adjectives I'd use to describe myself, I don't know if "happy" is one of them anymore. I think that's a natural part of life, though; it's not that I'm so depressed or angry that I can't be happy. I enjoy my work. I look forward to coming home and seeing my wife. I have a good time when I'm together with friends and family. I like writing and recording and reading and eating and all sorts of other activities. There are plenty of things that make me happy. But happiness, for me, is more subdued and transitory these days.

I've attended more funerals in the last few years than I have in my entire life. I've watched relationships break apart, watched people break apart with the turmoil and loss in their lives. I know what it feels like to be unemployed; I know what it feels like to feel uncertain about the job I do have. Visits to the doctor and the auto repair shop have gone from rarity to routine. I am acutely aware of how dangerous it can be to drive on some of the roads I frequent. I have become so attuned to the regrets and pains and fears of this life that it seems impossible, or at least irresponsible, to tune them out. I can hardly spend money anymore without thinking of how many people might starve to death tomorrow because I wanted to go out for steak, or how every tiny purchase of "just a couple bucks" is ultimately keeping me from saving up for anything I truly want or need. I don't get more than mildly excited about new movies and video games anymore, because past experience has taught me that I'm likely to be disappointed if I expect anyone from the current generation of filmmakers and developers to deliver anything worth getting excited over. I'm too jaded and preoccupied to be the happy, carefree kid I used to be.

What's liberating about being a Christian is the reassurance that I don't need to worry about this life. I could quote scripture about learning to be content in all circumstances and trusting that all my needs will be met, but I try not to preach what I don't always practice. I've learned to be self-sufficient, and it's often a challenge to let go of that need to be the one in control, even when it's a matter that's clearly beyond my control. I have no doubt that I'd be happier to accept things as they happen and make the most of every situation, good or bad...but at heart, I'm too much of an idealist to "go with the flow" when I think things should be different or should be up to me to change.

What do I do, then? Compromise my idealism? I tried that recently, and the only way to live with myself has been to stop caring altogether. "Insensitive, standardless, but happy" isn't really what I'm going for here. I want to have the kind of faith and confidence that's resistant to worry. I need to be proved wrong every once in a while when I start making assumptions about how bad things are or will be. I ought to spend more time with the people and activities that recharge my positive outlook. I can still recognize and process sadness, anxiety, and failure, but I can satisfy that desire for control by doing everything in my power to ensure those feelings don't overtake the happiness in my life. I wager it's just as unhealthy to let something repress your happiness as it is to let something repress the negative feelings that need some room inside you to breathe.

I think that's my big resolution for the New Year: rediscovering the kind of lasting and vibrant happiness I used to enjoy.

If you've seen my Backloggery or have followed my writing for any length of time, you know I play a lot of video games. You might also know how fond I am of breaking games down and analyzing the heck out of them—to me, that's often just as enjoyable as gaming itself. I have gut reactions and strong opinions about the games I play, just like anybody else, but I like to understand where they come from; self-awareness and thoughtful examination are a powerful combination that helps separate fact from opinion when it comes time to tell someone that Donkey Kong Country 2 is nowhere near as good as the original. Furthermore, giving ample thought to my feelings about a game prepares me for the "you're an idiot because DKC2 is amazing and your face is stupid" speech I might get in response.

When I analyze a game, I like to look at what impact each individual element has on the greater whole. A game can have an outstanding soundtrack or an abysmal storyline, but they alone do not constitute the entire game. Graphics, music, controls, gameplay, etc. all work together as a team to create a complete package; no aspect of a game exists in a vacuum. Examining how each aspect of a game contributes to or detracts from the overall game experience has been invaluable in distinguishing between which games are legitimately good or bad, and which games I simply do or don't like.Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon is perhaps the best example I have of a good game that I simply don't enjoy. As a tactical strategy RPG, it's very solid: it has well-designed challenges, a fair amount of customizability, interesting locations, plenty of secrets to find, a variety of unit types for you and your enemies, and a decent plot that drives the story. I have no qualms with the controls or the music or the graphics. It's a good game. I couldn't stand playing it. I'm a completionist and a perfectionist: between losing half my army in every battle to sloppy tactics and passing up half of the one-chance-only items in the game because I'd burned most of my money on reviving my team, I had a hard time liking the game. I felt the rift between how I was playing and how I wanted to play continuing to grow, with no way to close it but to restart and try again from scratch—and if it was heartbreaking to replay a single battle after pouring everything into it and losing, imagine how I felt about the prospect of replaying every battle, with no guarantee that the results would be any better.On the flip side, there's Light People on Fire. I reviewed this game for a "Flash Flood" column on GameCola about games for terrible people. The graphics consist primarily of stick figures and fireball special effects right out of Microsoft Paint. The gameplay consists of lighting people on fire. It takes about two or three attempts to master, and about two or three minutes for the game to become utterly repetitious and pointless. But the concept of a stick-figure tree creeping around town and bursting into flames at will, combined with the abrupt musical transition from tranquility to heavy metal when the blaze begins, is hilarious to me, if only for a few minutes. Light People on Fire is not a very good game, yet I enjoyed it enough to rate it a 3/5, which is better than what I've given to half the Zelda games I've played. That doesn't mean the game is better than Ocarina of Time; it just means I like it more.

I know; I'm an idiot because OoT is amazing and my face is stupid.

But I understand myself well enough to know that Zeldareally isn't my style, so saying I like some slapdash Flash game better than THE GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME isn't really a criticism; it's a statement of preference. A statement of poor taste, perhaps, but an honest one. If anything, I'm mellower and more objective about games and series that aren't my style; there's less for this perfectionist to nitpick when it's clear that addressing the "flaws" would change the game into something it never had the potential nor intention to be.

Understanding the intent of the developers and the time and place where the game was made are also important. Kirby's Adventure lets you easily and regularly absorb the abilities of the enemies you meet; is it the developers' fault that the game is so difficult and boring if you aren't taking advantage of those powers? Frogger for the Atari 2600 doesn't look like the latest Call of Duty; does that mean it has bad graphics? A little perspective goes a long way in rendering a fair judgment of a game.

Ultimately, perspective is what it's all about for me: understanding myself as a gamer, trying to understand the mindset of the developers, and looking at the game as a whole package. Is the game fun? Why, that's just scratching the surface.

My wife told me a story about a study that was performed where one group of artists was told to produce one work of art in a certain time frame, and another group was told to produce as many works as possible in the same time frame. The result was a bunch of stressed-out artists in the first group with gorgeous art and a bunch of contented artists in the second group with a broad range of successes and failures. I've been thinking about this story lately as I've been recording videos at a faster rate than usual.In the last month, I've recorded more footage for YouTube than I have in the last year: a full playthrough of the Game Boy Color adaptation of Crystalis, the first third of my next Mega Man 7 video, and two hours now of an impromptu playthrough of Mega Pony. At the same time, I've released more material of dubious entertainment value in the last month than ever before. It's been both refreshing and disheartening to crank out new videos at the speed the rest of the Internet does.My original plan for Crystalis was to play it on The END DAY as is my yearly custom, but to livestream it and post it to the GameCola YouTube channel. After extensive research and testing, I determined that my current setup was unsuitable for livestreaming, so I fell back on my usual method of recording video footage and adding retrospective commentary. Having learned from my Space Quest 0 playthrough that was supposed to last a weekend and turned into a few months, I made a commitment to myself to record each video's commentary in a single take, unless I said something so catastrophically stupid that only a re-take could salvage it.For the most part, I was able to keep my vow, though one or two videos required a couple takes or a few breaks while I came up with anything to say. Overall, I think everything turned out fine, but I don't have the sense of satisfaction that I had after completing Space Quest 0 or Deja Vu before that. There are funny moments, and I think I bring up some interesting points every now and again, but the gameplay is neither hilarious nor impressive enough to be all that interesting on its own. It's really the commentary that drives my Crystalis videos, and there are large swaths of it that I'd re-record in a heartbeat. Overall, I think the video series is entertaining enough, but as the only full playthrough of this version currently available on YouTube, I think the viewing community deserves better.Speeding through Crystalis allowed me to get back to Mega Man 7 before too much time had passed, however. It took me more than a year to release the teaser trailer for the video series, so I've been trying my hardest to get at least one new video per month to my fans—because it's my favorite video game series and because my viewers have come to expect a certainly level of quality from the gameplay and commentary, it takes me a long time to get my Mega Man videos to a point where I'm satisfied with them.I was on fire with the commentary after Crystalis wrapped up; it normally takes me about one hour to generate and perfect one minute of commentary, and I'm usually only good for an hour or two before recording fatigue sets in, but I breezed through the first 3-1/2 minutes in a single sitting. Since then, it's been almost impossible to get back to it—I can think of things to say for the section I'm in, but nothing feels even remotely interesting. It doesn't help that I feel like I need to deliver extra-perfect commentary to make up for rushing through Crystalis, another one of my all-time favorite games (the NES version, at least), which didn't receive the recording attention I would've given it if I weren't so far behind on MM7.Then, on a whim, I started recording Mega Pony with my wife. The short version is that one of my fellow GameCola staff members alerted me to the existence of a Mega Man / My Little Pony crossover fangame, and when my wife learned about it as well, she got excited and begged me to play it for her, as platformers are not her strong suit. About 30 seconds into the game, we both decided this would be too good a recording opportunity to pass up, so I set things up to record my first-ever honest-to-goodness blind "Let's Play" video. Both of us are tremendously pleased with the result—the commentary is frequently informative and funny, and some of the gameplay is downright hysterical.We sat down to record Part 2 tonight, and neither one of us is feeling all that great about it. Sure, I beat several stages, but I also died repeatedly in the same few spots. Sure, we both made a few funnies, but most of what I remember about the commentary is me trying to form a deep thought about one of the other Mega Man games I've played, getting so distracted by my thought process that I fell into a spike pit, and my wife groaning about how I died again. The shame is that this is supposed to be a live, blind playthrough, so any editing or re-recording would defeat the whole purpose of the video.Crystalis, Mega Man 7, and Mega Pony represent three different kinds of recording styles, and it's odd for me to be bouncing between them. I feel like an artist who was assigned to both groups at once from my wife's story, and because I can't focus on succeeding at one or the other, I'm failing at both. I'm probably being too harsh on myself, as is my tendency when it comes to creative projects, but then it's easier to accept rejection if it turns out my self-criticism isn't unfounded after all.I've said many times before that my videos don't need to be perfect; they just need to be entertaining. With all the recording I've done in the last month, it's hard to tell anymore what qualifies as entertaining. I'm deliberating over every word for Mega Man 7 and spouting whatever comes to mind for everything else; can I really expect to keep a sense of perspective when I'm yo-yoing between two radically different approaches?

For the record, if I ever say anything that sounds hurtful, offensive, or especially closed-minded, please call me out on it, because I probably don't intend for it to sound that way. I've got strong opinions about a few things—I'll rag on movies and video games that annoy me, and I'll speak my piece about processes and organizations that I feel don't work well—but when it comes to individuals, the last thing I want is to inflict verbal harm. It tears me up inside to walk away from a conversation on bad terms with the other party, and it's that much worse if whatever relationship I have with the person comes to an end because of something I've said.We are humans—we make mistakes and we make decisions that others don't always approve of; we believe things and support things that others might disagree with. Please don't mistake my criticism of something you've done or something you think as an affront to your whole person. Likewise, please don't write me off because of one thing I've failed to express clearly, thoughtfully, or kindly.I thrive on constructive criticism; let me know if I ever sound like I'm out of line. Otherwise, I can't explain myself if you're misinterpreting me, and you can't knock some sense into me if I'm being perfectly clear and utterly wrong. I value an open dialogue, no matter how differently we may view things or how upset we may be with each other, because you and I are so much more than the sum of the things we don't see eye-to-eye about.

I don't generally follow politics, but I do get out to vote whenever possible. "Why bother?" you ask. "It's not like your vote makes a difference." No, you're right—the chances that my single vote means anything other than bupkis are slim to none. That's because I don't choose our elected officials. We do. I forfeit my right to complain about my country's government if I don't vote, just like I forfeit the right to complain about not winning the lottery if I don't buy a ticket. The odds that it'll make any difference are against me, but the point isn't to beat the odds—if you do, that's only a bonus. The point is to play the game.

My wife and I go out to vote together. We don't always vote alike—I'm sure our votes have effectively canceled each other out on occasion—but on the way over to our polling place, we discuss the people we are (and are definitely not) voting for. Sometimes, one of us sways the other to change his or her vote. More often, our choices remain the same, but we have a worthwhile conversation that helps us to better understand the ups and downs of these candidates as well as each other's thought processes. Not everyone can have a civil discussion of the subject, but my wife and I give enough consideration to the candidates we support to explain where we're coming from before any fur starts flying. We already understand each other's personal viewpoints on "the issues"; choosing a candidate is mostly a matter of weighing the personal and professional choices and identities of the individuals on the ballot and deciding which person would best represent us.

Why doesn't my individual vote matter? Because too much of the country assumes there are only two choices, and certain states act like there's only one. If I'm not siding with the obvious winner or tipping the balance to the left or right when it's too close to call, I'm throwing away my vote. But I throw away the democratic process in favor of an endless tug-of-war when I let the rest of the country essentially flip a coin to decide who my leaders will be. How much do I really care about myself or this country if I don't cast my lot with whomever truly represents my best interests? How much do the nation's problems really matter to me if I've got a half-dozen people on the ballot who have solutions, and I only consider listening to one or two of them? Forget about the piddly little drop in the bucket that is my single vote; my integrity, patriotism, and freethinking individualism are at stake here!I take responsibility for my votes. I sit down to research all the candidates before an election. All the candidates—Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Independent; even the ones with ridiculous names like the Go To Bed Or Else Your Mother Will Run For President To Make It Against The Law To Stay Up Late party. It doesn't matter if I think I won't like what a candidate has to say. Political affiliation is only a label, and you can't trust a label to tell you what an individual is like.

The trouble is, some candidates don't make it easy for people who care about more than their party affiliation to find out anything about them. If I miss all your pep rallies and debates and newspaper coverage, where can I turn for information about you? The Internet. If you are truly serious about getting elected, the least you can do is get your tech-savvy nephew to spend five minutes throwing together a free website for your campaign. Facebook or Twitter? Even better. Project Vote Smart? Fab. I cannot tell you how many candidates I've given up on because I couldn't find anything about them, from every party, for President all the way down to Board of Education.

At the time I'm writing this, doing a search for my name on Google yields this website as the first result, my Twitter account right after that, a YouTube tribute video one of my fans made for me, the wrong Nathaniel Hoover's Facebook page, my article contribution page for GameCola, my LinkedIn profile, some other dude's LinkedIn profile, Exfanding Your Horizons, and a news article about my demise in Jacksonville, FL last year. All of this is on the first page of search results, and that's without throwing on any additional terms to narrow down which Nathaniel Hoover we're talking about.

Meanwhile, I'm trolling the archives of a local newspaper for even a passing mention of this person who's on the ballot. If you don't recognize the value of a basic Internet presence, then it makes me wonder how in-touch with our tech-driven society you really are. If you see the value but can't be bothered to establish a basic Internet presence, then I wonder how much you really care about getting elected. If you see the value but don't know how to establish a basic Internet presence, then I wonder how suitable you are to lead if you give up on anything you can't do by yourself. I'm not even asking for a whiz-bang multimedia extravaganza; a 1997 GeoCities page with your picture and a list of three things you care about would be fine!

In the end, I vote for the person I feel is best qualified for the job, regardless of whom the media and my own political party are putting in the spotlight. If that's a waste of a vote, then it's a waste of a vote. But I'd rather waste my vote trying to do right by myself and my country than sit at home and wait for an election that's worth voting in.

I've enjoyed adventure games for as long as I've known the genre existed, but there aren't too many adventure games I've managed to finish without some outside help. Often, turning to a walkthrough or hint book is a matter of impatience—given enough time, I can usually figure out how to get past the puzzles and areas that have me stumped, but there comes a certain point when going around in circles simply isn't fun anymore. More recently, I've discovered a new reason for giving up: recognizing when the developers haven't provided the kinds of clues and structure I require to have any chance of succeeding by my own brainpower.I may not be an adventure game expert yet, but I've played enough of 'em to tell when the designer and I aren't thinking alike.

I've come to the conclusion that it's not the logic behind the puzzle solution that matters; rather, it's how you present the puzzle to the player. A puzzle only works well if the player thinks the same way the developer does—and just like any platformer or FPS or RPG, there needs to be a learning curve to ensure the player is thinking the way the developer wants him or her to. A great idea for a puzzle is only the beginning—the implementation is critical.

Based on my experience as a player, along with my experience as a Dungeon Master who likes to throw riddles and puzzles at his Dungeons & Dragons players from time to time, here are three key rules I've developed for implementing puzzles that are both intuitive and enjoyable:

1.) Make it clear that there is a puzzle. There's a big difference between exploration and aimless wandering—keeping the players focused on accomplishing tasks and overcoming obstacles strengthens the story and makes the gameplay more engaging than if the players spend the whole game looking for something to do.

2.) Provide clear and consistent feedback about what does and doesn't work. Adventure game players are problem-solvers, not mind-readers; unclear, misleading, and absent feedback about a player's actions can ruin even the most logical puzzles.

3.) Establish clear causality. People of all different cultures, languages, religions, and educational backgrounds will potentially play your game—the more your puzzle solutions rely on knowledge not communicated inside the game, the more likely your logic will come across as baffling and obtuse to anyone who doesn't share your background or way of thinking.To help emphasize the importance of these three rules, I'd like to present a series of examples from King's Quest V—which prompted this post in the first place—that demonstrate how a conceptually sound idea can provide a great challenge in one game but a terrible challenge in another, depending on the implementation. Needless to say, spoilers ahoy.

Challenge: Enlist the help of others to accomplish something you can't do alone.

A recurring theme in King's Quest V is helping others who, in return, help you. After tricking a meddlesome dog into leaving the colony of ants it's been terrorizing, the leader of the ants (whose speech you can understand due to some magic) thanks you profusely and offers to help you in any way you might need. Now, one might expect to be able to talk to the ants again to request a favor, or perhaps to see an ant icon on the inventory screen that can be used to call in the ants precisely where you choose. Instead, you get...nothing. The ants don't discuss the offer further, so you can only assume you'll need to come back and ask again once you've come across something they can help with.

Wrong! All you have to do is click on the right object, and the ants will automatically deploy. Perhaps you've seen the haystack behind the inn. Perhaps you searched it, hoping to find the proverbial needle, with no success. Perhaps you noticed the back door of the inn, which is near to the haystack, and began envisioning a scenario where you could get the bandits inside the inn to chase you through the back door, at which point you could dive into the haystack and wait for the bandits to disperse in search of you elsewhere, leaving the inn empty for you to safely explore. Perhaps you weren't expecting anything different to happen when, out of tired desperation to figure out what to do next, you clicked on the haystack for a second or third time. Perhaps you were surprised to see a colony of ants march into the haystack without any prompting whatsoever, coming from a screen that isn't even within earshot of this one, to retrieve an item (the proverbial needle) that you haven't been given a reason to search for, especially after the game told you the first time you clicked that there were no needles in this haystack! All three rules are thrown to the wind here.

It should also be noted that Cedric, the owl who follows you throughout the entire game, does not once offer to lift a finger (assuming owls have fingers) when it comes to doing anything he could possibly help with. Cedric, could you hop onto those icy platforms to see if they break under your weight before I go hopping on them? Cedric, could you distract the gypsy man so I can sneak into his wagon? Cedric, could you swoop in and pluck that poisonous snake from the path while his attention's on me? No? Of course, Cedric. Tell me how to get to the bakehouse again, because that's all you know how to do.

Gemini Rue is a game that does this kind of challenge right. There's a tense sequence relatively early in the game where you and your buddy Matthius are trying to escape from a building that's now swarming with enemy goons. You make a break for the exit, but you can't get the door to the roof open. Trapped at the end of the hallway, you have only moments to open that door before bad guys start pouring in through the way you entered. Fortunately, you're not alone—Matthius is just as capable of kicking doors and picking locks as you are, and you can instruct him to perform different actions on anything you can click on. With a little teamwork, you can make it out alive. All three rules are intact here: it's obvious that the door to the roof is the only way out; you get clear and immediate feedback from the game about how Matthias can be used to assist you; and the consequences of your actions (and inaction) are plainly visible and stem from the logical interplay of armed goons, two average-strength heroes, one door you can open, and one door you can't.Challenge: Navigate an area that's seemingly endless.

In King's Quest V, the land of Serenia turns into endless desert if you travel far enough west. Cedric the talking owl tells you that. And even if you didn't believe him, you'd find out for yourself, and end up dying of dehydration after a few screens. It truly is nothing but desert. You start to make a map, or perhaps move systematically through the desert, but then you notice the same four screens repeating. And then you die of dehydration again. Heck, the northernmost part of the desert is up against a steep cliff, and that's the same screen over and over if you try to cross the desert up there. Besides, you've played King's Quest III and you remember that there's nothing across any given endless desert except death. You have absolutely no reason to explore the desert. You've ventured into the desert three times, in three different places, and there is nothing there.

Except for the oasis you missed that's four screens in. And the skeleton with the grody old boot. And the bandit tent with the magic staff that lets you into the temple with the coin and the bottle you need in order to solve two of the game's most pivotal puzzles. But you've already explored about 20 screens of the explicitly-stated-to-be-endless desert and found nothing but dehydration, death, and reused backgrounds. So, no, as far as you're concerned, there is nothing out there. If you happen across a jug of water or somesuch later on, perhaps you'll bother with the desert again. Until then, out of sight, out of mind.

You never do find that jug of water.

In The Secret of Monkey Island, there's an underground network of lava-filled caves that is so confusing to navigate that the landscape might completely change when you backtrack to a screen you were just on. You know for a fact that you'll have to go through here to reach the villainous Ghost Pirate LeChuck, but even if you hadn't just spent this entire portion of the game trying to gain access to this area, this confusing maze is too far out of the way to simply be a dead-end. Based on your experience with the confusing forest earlier in the game, there's gotta be some trick to getting through...and so there is: some cannibals who captured you earlier mentioned a Head of the Navigator that'll be perfect for the job.

King's Quest V violates Rule # 1 and Rule # 2 with its endless desert--there's no obvious need to enter the desert, and the feedback you get about the desert all points to it being a dead-end that's meant only to kill you, or else a place you're not ready to enter yet. The Secret of Monkey Island, on the other hand, leads you directly into the endless caves, so there's no question of whether you should bother with them, and makes a puzzle out of obtaining the item you know you need to make it through the caves—though you're certainly welcome to try navigating them on your own.Challenge: Avoid detection.

By the end of King's Quest V, you've infiltrated the castle of the evil wizard Mordack in an attempt to rescue your family. As far as you can tell, Mordack is unaware of your presence, so you poke around the castle a bit, taking your time to examine your surroundings. Halfway across the dining room, Mordack appears out of nowhere and magically chokes you to death, offering you no opportunity to defend yourself or run away. Okay, you think to yourself as you reload, maybe walking around out in the open is a mistake. I'll stick to the walls and move faster next time. On your second attempt, you get a little deeper into the castle, but Mordack still shows up and puts an end to you. Wow, you think. There really isn't any time to lollygag. I'll rush through next time and will examine each room more closely once I've got a way to protect myself. Yet even that doesn't work; it seems there are specific locations where Mordack will show up no matter how quickly you move, but his timing elsewhere is still unpredictable—sometimes he shows up right away, and sometimes he lets you go through several rooms without incident.

King's Quest Vfudges Rule # 1 and ignores Rule # 3 altogether. What, exactly, is the puzzle here? Is it avoid Mordack? Is it confront Mordack? Is there a pattern to his movements? Is there something specific you're doing (or not doing) to hasten his arrival? Is this just a sign that you shouldn't be poking around the castle until you've done something else first? Who knows?! If you're going off of your encounter with the witch back in the forest earlier in the game, then the obvious answer is that Mordack appears at random and you need a powerful magical charm to ward off his attacks...but the real answer is that you first need to thwart one of his goons—a big, blue beast that appears at random and for some reason hasn't shown up for you yet—so that Mordack will appear less frequently. The nature of the puzzle is unclear, the relationship between the different components is unclear, and there's a randomized, unrelated component you don't even know you're missing!

Contrast this with Space Quest I, which starts you off aboard a starship that's been invaded by hostile aliens. Every so often, you'll see a message that you hear footsteps; moments later, alien soldiers show up. It becomes apparent after the first encounter that they shoot on sight, so unless you can rustle up a weapon of some sort, the only way to survive is to avoid them. Outrunning them is difficult, if not impossible, but there are elevators you can duck into to hide from them—and the game congratulates you the first time you evade the aliens. All three rules are fully intact here: You know enemy soldiers are actively patrolling the corridors, you're given a warning to go hide yourself, and you get clear feedback about whether your course of action is successful.

Challenge: Wait for the situation to change.

If you can stay alive long enough in King's Quest V to explore the top floor of Mordack's castle, you'll come across a strange machine with a plate on either side and large cones pointing down at the plates. After some experimentation, you discover that it's possible to activate the machine (nevermind how; dropping a piece of moldy cheese into the machine deserves a paragraph of its own). You also find that you can leave your useless magic wand on one of the plates, so perhaps you can drop something on the other plate to recharge your wand or something. Exploring the castle more, you find Mordack's bedroom and an adjacent library. There's a spellbook there, and you memorize the first two pages you see...but now what? Getting the machine to work seems like the only way you can recharge your wand to cast those spells and rescue your miniaturized family from their prison, but none of the items you have on you will do the trick. Are you missing something?

Yes. Obviously, you need to steal Mordack's wand.But...it's never explicitly stated that you need Mordack's wand to complete the circuit on the machine, and the game doesn't let you figure that out for yourself by putting incorrect items—even magical ones—in its place. I tried transferring magic power into my useless wand from my no-longer-helpful magical amulet (nice job you did protecting me from Mordack's death magic!) but was denied without explanation. You figure there's gotta be something to put on the other plate, but there's not enough direction as to what that might be. Heck, you can't even tell that Mordack has a wand unless you're looking extremely closely; there's no grand flourish where his whips his wand around, so it usually looks like he just Force Chokes you to death. There's not even an indication that he's got a special place to store his wand—clicking on the little table where he eventually rests his wand gives you the same message as clicking on his bed. Rule #1 is on the rocks here, and Rule #2 is on vacation.

Even if you haven't figured out what the deal with the machine is, maybe you've considered secretly swapping out Mordack's wand for your useless one, so that he'll blindly pick it up and have it fizzle when he tries to kill you again. The problem is the same in either case: How do you get Mordack's wand? Every time Mordack appears, you die before you have any opportunity to react. You've played King's Quest III, and Mordack is the brother of the evil wizard from that game, so maybe Mordack also keeps his wand locked away in a safe when he's not choking you with it. Not seeing a safe anywhere, you scour each room from top to bottom, clicking on every object with every icon you have.

The solution? Wait in the library until Mordack appears in the bedroom to take a nap, at which point you can steal his wand and use it with the machine. OK, so let's throw all three rules into the bonfire now.

Standing around everywhere else in the castle has gotten you killed repeatedly, so there's no reason to think the library will treat you any differently--especially with a creepy eye over the doorway tracking your every move, like a magical security camera. At no point do you see any indication that Mordack is getting tired, or that his bedtime is approaching, or that there's anything he's got on his agenda today aside from killing you. And there's virtually no chance of accidentally discovering that Mordack takes a nap, because even the most thorough adventurer will run out of things to click on well before Mordack shows up: despite a grand variety of books and interesting objects on the table, you get one response for clicking anything on the bookshelf, and one response for clicking anything on the table that isn't the aforementioned spellbook. With as quickly as you've needed to move through the rest of the castle, it's unreasonable to expect the player to slow down so much when there's no obvious need or incentive to do so.

This wasn't a problem two installments ago—or, at least, it isn't a problem in King's Quest III Redux, a fan-made remake of the third game in the series. Mordack's evil brother Manannan is constantly on your case for a large portion of the game, but you've got a timer at the top of the screen that changes colors depending on how close Manannan is to checking in on you. Even without the timer, it's established almost immediately that Manannan goes about his evil business and has different things he likes to do in different rooms of the house. He'll bust you if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he's clearly on a schedule, and he's clearly got more things to occupy his time than just turning you into a pile of ashes. Manannan's house is where he lives; it's not simply where you die. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a player to try waiting around in a specific location with that kind of foundation in place.

King's Quest V is chock-full of problematic puzzles; I'm only scratching the surface here. The rules of clear objective, clear feedback, and clear causality are broken left and right throughout the game. In my tirade about King's Quest IV, I reiterated that these games really aren't my style, but I'm wondering more and more as I play through the King's Quest series whether it really is just a matter of taste. If I can appreciate good game design in genres I'm not too keen on (such as tactical RPGs—I disliked playing Shining Force but I don't think it's a bad game), then I should be able to appreciate good game design in genres I love, regardless of my style preferences. I laud King's Quest V for its beautiful graphics, clean interface, decent story, and acceptable voice acting (even the high-pitched Cedric isn't that bad after playing through Mega Man X7); it's the gameplay that spoils it for me. I knew there would be aimless wandering, random events, and unannounced time-based challenges, but accurate expectations didn't make the game any more intuitive or enjoyable.

King's Quest VI, it's up to you to persuade me that your series can deliver both great ideas and great execution. I'll buy you a little time to prepare yourself--Quest for Glory has been calling my name, I'm due for another round of Leisure Suit Larry, and I've had this sudden hankering to play Tomb Raider 2. Be ready.

Despite all the critical analysis (read: complaining) I do on this blog about one thing or another, I consider myself to be a pretty upbeat guy. I have my dark and serious moments like anyone else, but I'm a fairly reliable source of positive energy. Still, every so often I need a boost to get me out of a slump—a little reassurance that I am liked, that I am loved, and that what I do has meaning. I can tell myself these things are true, and I can know in my mind or my heart that they're true, but nothing beats being on the receiving end of someone else honestly expressing those sentiments, in actions or in words.

Over the course of the last week or so, I've received a tremendous amount of encouragement: uplifting feedback at work, glowing praise for my creative projects, comments on posts and videos I wasn't sure would get comments, an enthusiastic and out-of-the-blue message from someone I haven't seen in forever, kind and thoughtful words from a close friend who was thinking of me, a phone call expressing a newfound appreciation for the videos I make...and that's to say nothing of the love notes my wife regularly sneaks into my lunch, or the smiles I get from strangers in the elevator when my attempts to be friendly and funny actually work.

We get so wrapped up in living for ourselves sometimes that it's easy to forget we're not alone. We get used to living inside our own heads; often we don't think about how important we are to others or how important they are to us until a strong reminder shakes us out of our self-reverie. Sometimes all it takes is an impromptu bouquet of flowers or a cheerful e-mail. Other times it's a story on the news that's too close to home, a car accident, or a suicide note. I feel like a dork sometimes when I try to say or do something nice when there's no holiday or event that prompts me to, but it's usually worth that fleeting moment of awkwardness to make that connection with someone. From the self-conscious convention-goer who thinks her costume is terrible to the chef at the breakfast buffet who's making perfect omelets, we have countless opportunities to give encouragement to total strangers—how many more opportunities do we have with the people we know?

How many opportunities do we let slip because we assume our love and appreciation go without saying?

For what it's worth, and at the risk of sounding awkward, I'm grateful for your encouragement. Doesn't matter if I know you personally or if we've never met before. Whether it's a "thinking of you" phone call, an exclamation from across the parking lot that you love my t-shirt, a huge hug, or a simple Like for something I post on Facebook or YouTube, it all makes a difference.

After such a tedious and disappointing experience playing EarthBound Zero, you'd think I'd want to take a break from tedious and disappointing. Instead, I started replaying Mega Man X7. There must be something wrong with me.

Mega Man X7 is not a game you'll hear too many fans say they love, let alone like. It's a major departure from the norm: most notably, the game adds a third playable character and a third dimension—the graphics are 3D instead of the traditional 2D, and gameplay shifts between classic sidescrolling action and an "all-range mode" at various points in each stage. There's also a bigger focus on the story, with occasional animated cutscenes and frequent "talking head" cutscenes interspersed throughout the game. All the standard upgrades of Heart Tanks and armor parts are supplemented by a choice of further upgrades (such as increased damage and longer saber combos) that can make a tremendous impact on the difficulty of the game. X7 doesn't introduce anything inherently abhorrent or out-of-place for an X game, but the ham-fisted execution of the new ideas combined with an inconsistent handling of the old ones makes the game stand out as different for all the wrong reasons.

In other words, it's pretty terrible.

The graphics are fine. The sound effects are functional. The music is good. With a few exceptions, control is pretty tight. Menus are clean and organized. The overall story isn't any worse than anything we've ever seen before in a Mega Man game. The voice acting is adequate, but not stellar. Replay value is higher than usual because of all the upgrades. Special weapons are generally useful and decently fun to use. Many aspects of the game are, at the very minimum, acceptable. Unfortunately, X7's problems are so widespread and are rooted so far below the surface that all the better aspects of the game would need to be amazing to compensate for them.

There's one place in the game that exemplifies nearly everything that's wrong with the X7, and that is the battle with Flame Hyenard. First off, "Hyenard." Seriously, "Hyena" isn't that difficult to spell. The battle begins on a very large square platform surrounded by lava; not one but two Flame Hyenards run at you, launching small fireballs at you, as a huge four-legged machine slowly and innocuously marches around the outside of the platform. Obviously you need to defeat Flame Hyenard, but it's not immediately obvious (a) which of the two Hyenards is the real thing, and (b) what the marching machine has to do with anything, aside from shooting missiles at you. Maybe you can turn on your radio to get some useful information from Alia, but you're so sick of, "Can you hear me... [overlong pause] ...Zero?" that you've learned to tune her out when she tries to contact you.

So you attack the Hyenards. And you discover the most unbearable sound in videogame history: Flame Hyenard shouting, "BURN IT TO THE GROUND!!!" or some variant thereof every time he attacks with fire. He is constantly attacking with fire. And there are two of him. Is there music in this battle? Because all I hear is, "BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND BURN IT TO THE GROUND" mute TV.

So you attack the Hyenards in silence, hoping there aren't any audio clues that are necessary to your survival in this battle. They soak up a lot of damage, and it doesn't look like the boss's health bar is going down, so either they're decoys or they need to be destroyed before you can fight the real boss. Then again, it's difficult to tell sometimes how much damage you're doing to a boss, if any at all; their health bars are long enough that the tiniest bit of damage should be easy to see, but even some of the most powerful attacks only shave off only a little bit at a time. Boss fights have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled in length, depending on your technique—even the wimpiest attack in Mega Man X could fell a boss in 32 hits; Axl without any power-ups needs to unload hundreds of shots to take down the bosses in X7, and that's even before their health bars grow to ridiculous proportions in the final stages.

Oh, but here's a surprise: as soon as you destroy the Hyenards, new ones immediately take their places. So they are truly decoys. Guess you should look at taking out that huge walking robot, then. There's lock-on targeting system that should identify where you can hit the robot...but nothing's coming up. And you're still being hounded by Hyenards. Zero can't really get close enough to damage it, so you use X or Axl to look for a lock-on...but you don't realize you're just far enough away that you can't get a lock. Eventually, by accident, you lock onto a leg and start firing, and before too long you've managed to stop the machine in its tracks. Now what? Is there something else to lock onto? Are you too far away? The machine starts moving again, so whatever it is you need to do, you need to do it quickly. Stumped, you consult a walkthrough, which tells you to wall-jump up the side of the leg to get on top of the machine. Why, that's absurd. Wall-jumping only works on about five surfaces in the entire game, like this is Metroid Prime 2 or something. There's no way you're throwing yourself over a lava pit to try to wall-jump up a leg. Even if you do manage to grab the side of it, you'll probably fall off the moment you land at a funny angle that totally would've worked in any other X game.

You do it anyhow. And it kinda works. You're up on top of the machine, and it starts moving again. The real Flame Hyenard is there, and you manage to land a hit before he starts attacking with two of his clones. But hey, that time you did damage. Soon the Hyenards have got you trapped, circling around you with fireballs blazing as missiles launch from the doors beneath your feet.Now it's just a matter of damaging the right one—which would be a heck of a lot easier if you could disable this worthless auto-aim that's preventing you from firing where Hyenard is going to be by the time your weapon reaches him.

Tired of your auto-aimed shots just missing the circling targets, you get into position to fire a point-blank range during the next pass...except the machine you're standing on is still moving, and you're gradually sliding backwards out of position. Consequently, you miss a shot with Splash Laser, Flame Hyenard's weakness, and find yourself frantically pressing the button to take another shot...but nothing's coming out. Are you out of ammo already? The weapon energy bar is so absurdly thin that you have no idea how many shots you have left. Beyond that, the color gradient across the bar makes it unnecessarily difficult to read when it's partially full—the empty space in your energy bar was solid black in previous games, making it easy to tell the difference; now it's transparent, so your multicolored energy bar all too easily blends in when it's against a multicolored background.

Hours later, once you've spent some time away from the game, you'll have an epiphany that the downward-arcing Splash Laser went off the side of the machine, and you must've been locked out from firing another shot until the projectile was completely off the screen...and it's quite a fall from the top of the machine to the bottom of the lava pit.

Presumably out of weapon energy, you resort to charging up your buster as X to take out Flame Hyenard. Except there's this weird thing that happens sometimes where you try to fire a charged shot, and your charge just disappears. Like, poof. Not so much as a dinky shot fired. It's like you never started charging up at all. Which is a serious problem when you're rapidly losing health and need to kill this clown ASAP.

So you switch to Axl, or Zero; whoever the other person is with you at the time. And somehow you just manage to squeak by with a victory. And you proceed to the menu screen, where Alia will tell you AGAIN about how you can upgrade your systems thanks to the Reploids you rescued in the stage you just beat. Except you don't want to upgrade either of the people you have in your party at the moment. You want to save that upgrade and use it on the other guy. But you can't. And there are only 16 power-ups in the game to cover the 36 upgrades across all the three characters (12 upgrades per character). It's one thing to have more upgrades than you can afford to get in a single playthrough; it's another thing entirely to force you to buy upgrades at regular intervals when there's a third character you might want to upgrade who's not available until roughly halfway through the game. And it's not like it's safe to skip power-ups until you have him, either, because several of the Reploids you need to rescue can be permanently destroyed by nearby enemies if you leave them alone.

Once you've listened to Alia blather about everything from your new weapon to assigning power-ups to Hunter rankings, with no option to tell her to can it, it's back to the familiar menu choices: Stage Select, Save, or Exit to Title. Well, you have no interest in fighting Flame Hyenard again, so you definitely want to save your game. Alia asks you whether you really want to do that. You've been through this dozens of times with other games; just keep on clicking the confirmation button to speed your way through the options. Except X7, by default, positions your cursor on "No" instead of "Yes," as though the game is expecting you to make a mistake every time you choose an option. So instead of speeding through the saving process to quickly get back to the action, you need to carefully select each option, including whether or not you really want to save your game in that slot, and whether you really want to return to the game instead of the title screen. Between the endless prompts, the plentiful slow-moving text that you can't ever speed up, and the atrocious load times, the game screeches to a halt between stages. In the time it takes you just to save your game, you could've made it to the midway point of Air Man's stage in Mega Man 2.

Seriously. There are entire Mega Man games that are shorter than the amount of time you'll spend on the menu screen in X7.Replaying X7 was inevitable, though: My first and only playthrough was a mess, both in terms of item collection and my ability to stay alive. It's not like me to leave a Mega Man game so far from 100% completion, and I'm too much of a fan to walk away from an installment I know I can do better at, no matter how much I dislike the game. Besides, with how drastically different the game experience can be depending on which boss order you choose, I strongly believe that you need to play through a Mega Man game at least twice to truly get a feel for it. X7 nagged at me both as a player and as a Mega Man expert of sorts: I owed it to myself, the game, and the people who listen to my opinions about Mega Man to give X7 a second chance. And if I was going to replay a game I was so glad to be done with, I was sure as heck gonna make sure to cross it off my Backloggery and not leave myself a reason to subject myself to the game ever again: this playthrough would be done on the hardest difficulty with the intent of 100% completion—if a single Reploid got killed before I could rescue him or her, I'd get up and manually reset the game, sitting through all the loading screens and replaying whatever miserable portion of the stage I'd gotten through just to try again.

Because clearly, I am insane.

I admit that the second time through X7 was notably better than the first. Not enough to improve my overall opinion of the game, but it was definitely less painful. Knowing what to expect helped me to structure my approach to the stages, and I could focus more on refining my strategy than figuring out what I was supposed to do in the first place. I also decided to try using Zero this time instead of relying entirely on Axl (and later, X) to keep my distance from the enemies who'd surely cut me apart even faster if I tried to get in close with Zero's melee attacks. As it turns out, Zero rocks. His attacks are very powerful, he's nearly unstoppable by the time all his key upgrades are in place, and the special attacks he gets from bosses are not as difficult to pull off as I'd originally thought. (I'm still haunted by visions of X6 and the Zero series, which feel more like combo-heavy fighting games than the platformers I'm any good at.)

The middle of X7 was honestly, genuinely enjoyable the second time around. My characters had been thoughtfully upgraded for a change and were powerful enough to be a fair match against the bad guys, before their health bars got all ridiculous in the last two stages. I discovered the joys of swatting back enemy projectiles with the Z-Saber, knowing where all the power-ups and Reploids were hidden so I didn't have to keep revisiting the stages to search for them, and using A-Trance against random stage enemies whose temporarily stolen abilities made life easier. I was comfortable enough with the challenges to start playing around with the special weapons more, trying them out in places where they were more of a gamble than my default weapon. And after the endless random battles and unnecessarily large locations in EarthBound Zero, I was in the right mindset to deal with the wide-open areas of X7 and all the start/stop action that comes from taking so long to get from one challenge to the next.

That, I think, is the primary reason I decided to replay X7 so soon after first beating it: EarthBound Zero warmed me up for it. I wanted something more modern, with less repetitive graphics and a more streamlined interface; X7 fit the bill. I had been dealing with skewed challenges and uneven character progression for so long that X7 would feel more like it was par for the course than a downgrade from the norm. EarthBound Zero's story progression and character motivations hardly made sense at times; I haven't even touched on how questionable X7's story really is when you start to analyze the cutscenes, but I wasn't getting my hopes up by turning to a game that promised to have a compelling and cohesive story. If I was ever going to replay X7, now was the time.

I never deliberately sit down to play a game because it's terrible. Unlike movies, I find that bad games rarely have the potential to be so bad they're good; that extra element of interactivity ruins the fun of watching a train wreck, because you're on the train when it crashes. My compulsion to play (and replay!) games after I've established they're terrible stems from my intellectual curiosity about what makes a game good or bad, my completionist tendencies, my loyalty to the franchises I love, my penchant to look for the positive amidst the negative, and my passion for objective analysis of a largely subjective medium.

Plus, bad games provide great inspiration for blog posts.

Are EarthBound Zero and Mega Man X7 truly terrible? No, I don't think so. There are absolutely redeeming factors in both games. But I'm in no hurry to recommend them to anyone. The low points are far too low and plentiful to gloss over, no matter how good the rest might be.